how bi-partisan politics is making America dumber

With an election coming up in my town next week, I am reminded of how much I love our country and it's freedoms to vote and have a say. At the same time, I despise the party system. I think it's making America dumber. Here are my reasons:

First, very few people investigate what candidates stand for and what it will mean in the long run. Most people have been inundated with rhetoric that has become it's own language. Problem here? Everyone simply repeats what they've heard for years and years...no thoughtful conversation there. No conversation equals no exposure to alternate ideas. Why re-learn the same thing over and over? What's worse is that we end up arguing using someone else's brain, someone else's words...no real way to get real solutions.

Second, speaking of real, party politics deal in the ideal rather than the real. Or said this way, "If I was ______________, things would be better." There's no effort to work together for solutions now, just an effort to gain power to fix the 'other guy's mess.'

Third, don't ever EVER change your mind. That's political suicide. It's also the way most people live their life. Suppose you're driving a car. You see a cliff coming up. You decide that the current plan of action (going in said direction) will end badly or at least your GPS shows a better way. You stop, or turn, or at LEAST ASK FOR AN IDEA... There seems to be some pervasive idea among politicans that there's something to be valued by 'driving off the cliff.' Maybe there is, but if I mature, have a set of experiences...anything that illicits a different response than one I would've given in the same situation years before, I am dumb (and spineless).

Fourth, people have to take sides. Suppose I agree with policy from both sides. Person A tells me that one issue the biggest deal. Person B tells me that another is. Worse, my church tells me I'd better vote one way on an issue or another. "Jesus hates abortion" (I think he does), but Jesus probably also hates poverty, injustice, killing (read war) and a number of other things. So, what does Jesus hate the most? Who knows? All I know if I hate abortion and poverty and would like programs to end both...I have no candidate? Freakin' sweet...

I'm sure y'all can think of other reasons, but what it all boils down to is that we've been stripped of the reward of thinking for ourselves. We re-tell the same thing over and over...nothing new. We don't have to think anymore, we just have to look for the elephant or the donkey and they we un-critically digest and thus vote for said symbol. I am convinced that there would be a people that would vote for a person that 100% end all abortions and make them illegal even if said person jailed all those that had ever had an abortion in the past...and then killed them, just to get even...

That's stupid...